Prisons of Meritocracy

Reading today's meditation from Richard Rohr, I was struck by this.

The mentality that divides the world into “deserving and undeserving” has not yet experienced the absolute gratuity of grace or the undeserved character of mercy. This lack of in-depth God-experience leaves all of us judgmental, demanding, unforgiving, and weak in empathy and sympathy. Such people will remain inside the prison of “meritocracy,” where all has to be deserved.

It was that phrase, prison of meritocracy, that really captured my attention. I think it aptly captures much that is askew with the American psyche these days. It is why we can blame victims, assume that the poor are such because they are lazy, and we are not poor because we are not lazy. It is why the suffering of some people doesn't impact us as much as others -- they clearly are implicated in their own suffering by virtue of some flaw or miscalculation on their part. But this prison of meritocracy is also why we may be devastated by our own suffering or that of someone close to us. It is so unfair (unlike other people's suffering).

As a pastor trained in theology, I know all about the unmerited gift of God's grace, about "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." But I also imagine that I'm somehow better at understanding and receiving this grace. It is a Christian version of American exceptionalism, at least the form of it that understands such exceptionalism as residing in our being "better" than others.

Perhaps you've noticed that being good is hard to do all the time. Being "better" is even harder. Trying to live into the notion of being better and therefore deserving is indeed prison-like. There is no freedom to relax and simply receive love from another or from God. It must be earned. There is no freedom to embrace the portions of self and others that seem not so good or deserving. They must be purged, but when that proves impossible, they must be denied.

Surely some of the partisan nastiness in present day America arises from our need to be right and deserving. We must get things right, and once we do we must guard against those who are wrong, in other words, who disagree with us. If people who are wrong get elected, things will fall apart because it all  hangs on us getting it right. We get what we deserve, after all.

Living in the DC metro area, one thing I see scarce little of (and I include myself in this) is serenity. Rarely do I encounter people with an abiding sense of inner peace or shalom. Prison will do that to  you.

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